


The Lucky Ones

by dirtylittlegreasemonkey



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-07
Updated: 2019-04-07
Packaged: 2020-01-06 09:44:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18385919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dirtylittlegreasemonkey/pseuds/dirtylittlegreasemonkey
Summary: warnings for: mention of a miscarriage, minor character deathWhen broody Robert looks on at Aaron holding his new baby brother, Diane offers them money to complete their surrogacy dreams. What follows is the next eight years as Robert deals with fatherhood, children and a call that brings back pain from his past.





	The Lucky Ones

Robert couldn’t stop watching him. Even when he blinked the image was still there, fluttering warmth straight to his belly. He wanted to whip out his phone and take a picture, but that would disturb something about the scene. There Aaron was, stood off to the side of the village hall, his baby brother Luke in his arms, the Christening gown draped over his arm. Chas and Paddy had wanted to do the buffet and drinks in the pub, after the ceremony, but in the end too many people had wanted to come and it had been Robert’s suggestion to use the hall and fit everyone in rather than turn guests away. Aaron had bought a new suit for the occasion, dark grey, wearing it with an open necked shirt. He so desperately hoped Aaron would look up, Luke his arms, and see Robert watching him and smile. But he also worried that some small part of him was finding this day hard, even if he wouldn’t say it and risk hurting Chas’s feelings. Truth was, it was hard and Robert was struggling not to let himself feel it.

There was an arm on his shoulder.

“You look lost, pet,” Diane said, her voice bringing interruption to his trance.

He cleared his throat, flashed her a tight smile and took a sip of beer to clear it. They’d never got around to telling Diane their plans for a baby. It had seemed too far off, too improbable. He hadn’t wanted to fill himself with hope, let alone her.

“Me? I’m fine.”

Diane gave him a look which said she didn’t fully believe him, but wasn’t going to push it just yet. She knew how stubborn he could be. “Ooh it’s making me almost broody looking at the pair of them.” She nodded towards Aaron and Luke.

“He’s perfect.”

“Which one are we talking about?”

Robert ducked a smile into his beer. “Both, I suppose,” he said.

“Maybe we should start calling him the Baby Whisperer,” Diane said. “He’s always been good with Seb too.”

“I know,” Robert said. He put his drink down and rested against the wall, arms folded. “He’s a great dad.”

Diane stroked his arm, stopping to give the nub of his shoulder a squeeze. “If I didn’t know you any better I’d say you were feeling broody too, Robert Sugden.”

“I am,” he said, finally turning to look at her properly. “We’ve talked about it.”

“And?” Diane opened and closed her mouth several times, her prosecco sloshing in its glass.

Luke had started to get grizzly now, but Aaron’s mouth was bent in close, shushing and comforting him, pressing his tiny little body against Aaron’s chest and letting that low pulse of his voice calm him down. Robert ached. Luke’s hand gripped around Aaron’s finger and held on for dear life.

“There’s not much to say. We both want a family. We’ve gone as far as looking into surrogacy, but money wise? It’s a pipe dream. We want to do it properly, everything legally in place, but without the money we’ve got no chance.”

“How much money are we talking?”

Robert let out a long huff of air. He’d done the calculations thousands of times. Business was steady for both of them, but that didn’t mean they were any closer. Every month that passed it felt further away.

“If we do it in America, where the risks are less. Thousands. Tens of thousands.”

Diane blew out her cheeks, squeezed his shoulder again and released him. “So that’s why Aaron’s all over little Luke, then.”

Robert’s heart seized looking over at them, Aaron blowing raspberries, widening his eyes and mouth, anything to make Luke give a satisfied little burble. He was made to be a dad, to hold it in his arms and protect it with his life. To pour every last bit of love into that child’s life, making sure it had everything he hadn’t. Their child would want for nothing. There would never be a black cloud, there would never be a day where their child would question the love they had for them.

The fact Robert couldn’t click his fingers and make it happen was killing him.

“What with Seb, and losing Grace…”

“And now any hope of you two having a baby of your own is out the window…”

“Something like that, yeah.”

Diane grew quiet, fiddling with the clutch on her handbag. “When Victoria and Adam were trying for a baby, I planned to give them some money. You know, if they needed more extensive treatment, IVF that sort of thing. I’m comfortable. I never want for anything. And you see, I’ve still got some money left over from what your father gave me…”

“No,” Robert said, cutting her off.

“You haven’t let me finish.”

“Diane, I really appreciate the thought but-” What would Jack think? About two men and a baby, about no mother’s involvement, about buying the baby. Well, that’s what he’d think – wouldn’t he? That his years of slogging his guts out on the farm was all for Robert to buy himself a kid.

“Will you just let me speak?” Diane said, snapping. Over her shoulder Robert saw Bernice raise her eyebrows and duck away, fearing her mother’s wrath. Diane took him over to a corner away from the buffet table and they sat side by side on plastic chairs, the sort usually found in schools with gum stuck to the bottom.

Robert couldn’t let himself gets his hopes up again but he listened.

“Do you know how many times I listened to your father talking about how much he wished you’d settle down and grow up?”

Robert scoffed. He could feel it coming, her big speech about how proud Jack would have been, how glad. He felt his knee jerk up and down, an automatic reaction, a way to distract himself from his thoughts drifting back in time.

“You are the happiest I’ve ever seen you and I count my blessings everyday that you’ve been lucky enough to find Aaron, if only so that I don’t have to worry about you anymore. By my reckoning he’s pretty much a saint.” She elbowed him in the side to make sure he knew she was joking. She ran her hand over his, giving him a shake. “Let me help you.”

“I can’t take dad’s money.”

“You’re not taking it, I’m giving it.”

“He wouldn’t want you wasting it on me,” Robert said. He could feel his jaw harden. Aaron caught his eye, a frown forming, and Robert had to look away.

“Wasting? He’d want to see you happy, just like I do. And, hey, another grandchild for me to spoil rotten! Free babysitting whenever you two want a night off. I’d have to fight Chas off, mind.”

“Diane…”

“I’m writing you out a cheque and it’s up to you what you do with it. You can rip it up or stick it where the sun doesn’t shine if you’re going to be stubborn about it.”

It was then Aaron came over, with Robert still bristling. Luke squirmed in Aaron’s arms, but Diane held out her arms for a hold.

“You know, he’s the spit of you as a baby,” Diane said, then with a wink. “Oh Chas bored me to death with all the baby photos of you. I’ve seen them all. Even the ones in the bath.”

Aaron grimaced and pulled up a chair beside Robert, resting a hand on his leg. He waited until Diane was distracted by Luke’s grumbling to lean in. “Everything okay?”

“Fine,” Robert said, well aware that everything wasn’t and Aaron could sense it a mile off.

“My arms are actually aching now from holding him. He’s a right bruiser,” Aaron said, feeling his own muscles.

Robert knew his smile was weak but he couldn’t help it. Diane had brought everything swimming to the foreground now. He needed air but he didn’t want to make a big scene. He couldn’t let himself accept the money. He couldn’t let himself get excited.

But who was he refusing for? Some stubborn battle against a dead man who couldn’t answer back? Jack had been wrong about so much. Robert had shaken free, but there were still quiet parts of him that cared, that felt like he had something to prove. Maybe he wasn’t free at all.

He had restless nights about it over the next week and it didn’t change until Diane invited herself over, prising a crisp cheque from her handbag. He’d talked about it with Aaron in the dead of night when Aaron had pressed him over it, had asked him why he wasn’t sleeping, why he was downhearted after the Christening. Aaron had said he understood, that it was Robert’s choice. But it was what he said last, before he kissed him and they fell asleep that stayed with him the most. He said, “You don’t have to prove yourself to anyone. But whatever he thought about you is wrong. You’ve shown that hundreds of times. Our baby would be so lucky to have you.”

So when he made Diane a cuppa and she slid the cheque across the table and he did a double-take at the figure she’d written, he came to his decision.

*

He put her in the miniature hi-vis when they were still in the car, then lifted her out, making the obligatory groany old man noise as he hoisted her onto his hip. “Daddy’s going to love this,” he said, giving the end of her little nose a poke.

The tiny hardhat he’d ordered had been far too big so he left that at home, but he could barely suppress the grin as he bounded up the portacabin steps. Aaron was on the phone, saw Annie’s outfit and opened his mouth wide, exaggerating it for her benefit. He wrapped up the call quickly and leapt out of his chair.

“Hello darling,” he said. “What’s this you’ve got on?”

“I couldn’t resist,” Robert said. “My two little scrappers, eh?”

Aaron softened down Annie’s hair, planting a kiss on Robert’s cheek as he leaned in. “She looks cute.”

“Thought you might need an extra pair of hands to help out, what with Ellis on his holidays.”

Robert grinned, holding her out for Aaron to kiss her forehead. She had a habit of pushing him away when his beard got too scratchy. She raised up her hands, scrunching her face.

“She tired?”

“Surprised she didn’t nod off in the car.” Robert bounced her in his arms slightly, securing his hold. “Tell Daddy where we’ve been?”

Annie looked between them both, her large blue eyes watery with concentration. The word came out half-mangled. “ _Uck_.”

Robert mouthed ‘ducks’. He had almost had a heart-attack the first time she said it, thinking she had swallowed one of their favourite four-letter words, one they’d been trying desperately not to use in her presence, and copied it with gusto. But then reason took hold. He’d taken her to the park in the morning and they’d fed the ducks with cheap bread despite all the signs up saying not to. What was the point of having kids if you couldn’t take them to feed the ducks? Besides, it was not like they had any CCTV. She stuck out her hand, pointing at them and shouting UCK to anyone passing by. They’d had a whole conversation too about the sounds ducks make but he wasn’t sure she was listening. She took after her other dad in that respect, zoning out half-way through a conversation.

“Wow, you saw the ducks?”

“We saw _four_!” Robert said, getting Annie to hold up her fingers.

“And how many did Daddy try and kill with the mouldy old bread?”

Robert glared and handed Annie over so that she could sit on Aaron’s lap at his desk and play with his loose pencils, which Aaron had to keep moving out of reach. He handed her the toy car instead, the one he’d had sat there for years.

“Did you get the video from Rebecca?” Aaron asked, as Robert stuck the kettle on and raided Jimmy’s desk drawers for biscuits.

“Seb in his school uniform? Yeah, I just can’t believe it,” Robert said. It was frightening how fast he was growing up.

“God, I know. School already. Seems like only five minutes ago he was crawling.” Aaron gave Annie a little squeeze. “Don’t you grow up too fast, okay?”

“Okay,” she said. It was her favourite thing to say. She was a happy child, easy. Sometimes it was hard to believe she was even theirs. She had been so tiny when she’d first been born, so terrifyingly fragile that Robert couldn’t even imagine letting her loose in the world. He hadn’t wanted the world to touch her, she seemed too perfect for that. It was Aaron who’d been the one to make him see sense, to tell him to stop pacing the room while she slept, paranoid at every hitch in breath. Before she arrived the doctors had been worried about her, a shadow on a scan, and Robert had driven himself crazy thinking the worst. There were times their surrogate rang and he couldn’t bare to answer the phone. His craziest moments had reversed their roles; Aaron became his crutch, the one talking him round. When Annie arrived, Robert made the doctors confirm over and over and over that their little girl was fine. They wanted to look her over, keep her in a few days. But everything came back with the all clear. She was healthy, they promised, completely and utterly fine. And she was, a little grizzly at first when they got her home, a little overwhelmed by all the lights and the attention. But she was theirs, and she was home.

“Have you show her the video of Seb?”

“Only a picture. The sound wasn’t good enough in the park.”

Aaron placed a kiss in her hair and readied the video on his phone. “Do you want to see your big brother on his first day of school?”

“Okay,” said Annie, triggering a smile in Robert and Aaron, which they exchanged over her head. Robert squeezed in next to them, crouching to see into the screen.

Aaron pressed play and there was Seb, standing by the front door of Ross and Rebecca’s new house in Liverpool, dressed in his navy blue school jumper.

Rebecca’s voice came first, whispering _Go!_ into the phone as Seb looked shyly down at his feet and then into the lens. He spoke in a soft, stilted way like he’d been practising what to say.

“Hello Daddies, hello Annie, hello everyone. Today is the first day of school and I am really excited.” There was a long pause after that where he stared up at the person off screen holding the phone and waited for another instruction. To smile, wave and then say bye.

The video finished and Annie poked at the screen.

“I know,” Aaron said. “That’ll be you in a few years’ time.”

“Don’t wish our lives away, Aaron. I’m already trying to come to terms with the fact our boy’s all grown up, I don’t want this one getting old before our eyes.”

“Daddy’s feeling ancient,” Aaron told Annie.

“Okay,” she said.

Robert straightened up one of the photo frames on Aaron’s desk. It was one from the hospital, the first photo of the four of them. They’d sat Seb on a sofa in one of the family rooms and helped him to hold Annie, paying special attention to the position of her head. He was enraptured by her, kept stroking the downy hair on the crown of her head and trying to shush her when she grumbled. Aaron had called Seb a natural and then Aaron had cried a bit, taking about a thousand photos of just the two kids, but in the end they roped in one of the nurses to take a group photo. Liv had gone back up to university so they text it to her first and then sent one of the kids to Ross and Rebecca to show them how amazing Seb had been. Rebecca rang the next day to tell Robert that Annie was the only thing Seb had been talking about. Every painting was for her, every story he told to anyone was about his new sister and he’d even made a pile of old teddies he wanted to give her, asking Rebecca when he could next go and visit.

Robert wasn’t feeling ancient. He was starting to feel a kick of something else. Perhaps it was age in a way, that feeling he wasn’t going to be young and healthy forever. He was 36, hardly anything to worry about, but it had taken them a good few years to have Annie. He still wanted to be able to run around after the kids, play on the floor and let them exhaust him. In their situation it took time and money to have a child, and he was starting to wonder if perhaps they should start looking into having number three.

*

Robert was right to worry. Time became a slippery, uncatchable thing. Annie was three now, chasing four. Bright, funny, every part of Aaron he loved and every bit of himself too. Seb was almost seven and so much like what he’d been as a boy that it terrified Robert. He knew he was overcompensating at times, thinking back to the days when he himself had both a mum and dad and nothing to worry him. He could see Seb getting older and slightly more distant, more confident. But Robert could relax when he came to stay, knowing that Annie was the centre of everything - both peacekeeper and games-master when she needed to be. Sometimes she had a way about her that reminded him so much of Vic when she was little. Maybe that was the terrifying thing instead.

It was the end of September, approaching their sixth wedding anniversary and Robert had his head in the planning of a weekend away. Not a family trip, just the two of this time. Aaron was upstairs running Annie a bath and she was at the kitchen table finishing her last drawing of the day – she’d been allowed to stay up for fifteen minutes more after she begged.

“Daddy?” she said, not looking up, blunt pencil squeaking on her page. He was sure they’d said no to pencils, making her use crayons instead, but what did he know?

Robert looked up from his laptop screen, caught her yawning.

“Where am I sleeping?”

“Tonight?”

“No,” she said. “When you and Daddy go away.”

“The first night you’re going to Gran’s.”

“At the BnB.”

“No, at her house. Auntie Vic’s going to cook you all tea. Then the next day you’re going to Nanna’s.”

“To play with Luke.”

“If you want. I don’t know what Chas has planned. Then Daddy and I will be back to pick you up in the afternoon and we’ll come home.”

“Okay,” she said. The pencil made a few more squeaks on the page. “Can I draw a picture for Gran _and_ Nanna now?”

Before Robert could answer, Aaron was on the stairs, arms folded. “No,” he said. “Come on, you. We already agreed. Bath. Bed.”

Annie gave her best pleading, doe-eyed look at Robert and he had to do everything to resist giving in. He shot a look at Aaron and then back to her. “Off you go,” he said. “You can finish that tomorrow when you go to nursery.”

Aaron give him a look that said _I know you almost caved then_ , but he had his sleeves pushed up to his elbows, traces of bubble bath on his jeans, so Robert couldn’t take the death glare seriously.

“Are you opening a bottle of wine?” he said to Robert, helping Annie pack up her pencils and guiding her up the stairs.

“If you want me to.”

“I want you to.”

“Same rules for me? Bath. Bed?”

“If you’re lucky,” Aaron said.

Sometimes, especially on the nights where Annie had been particularly difficult, when he and Aaron were exhausted and combative with each other, Robert longed for the days where they could spend all day having sex and only stopping to eat, drink and piss. When they could rearrange days on a minute’s notice, when they could go out all evening and roll in at eleven, crack open a beer, watch a shitty movie and fall asleep after a blow job. But there was nothing quite like the house after Annie was tucked up in bed, Aaron sleepy but too happy to do anything else but mew, enjoying being touched, clothes lazily pushed out of the way, in the semi-darkness of their living room.

“I booked us two nights away,” Robert said, the heat of Aaron’s forehead, pressed into the crook of his neck, hand wormed down the front of Aaron’s joggers.

“Mm. Sounds good.”

Robert murmured a laugh, trapped as a hum in his chest. “You don’t even know where yet.”

“It’s you. It’s not going to be a Travelodge, is it?”

“Five stars.”

“It better be,” Aaron said, dryly. “It’s the least you owe me for putting up with you this long.”

There was a creak above them, the sound of feet moving around.

“She’s having nightmares again,” Aaron said, then pressed his hand over his face and pulled up his soft jogging bottoms. “She’s got great timing that girl.”

“It’s alright,” Robert said. “I was only just getting started.”

“Hold onto that thought. I could be a while.”

“You don’t think she’s getting anxious about us going away for the weekend and leaving her here with Chas and Diane?”

“No, she’s excited,” Aaron said, taking a last mouthful of wine, before heading towards the stairs. “Apparently Diane does much better story voices than we do.”

Aaron had just got his foot on the bottom stair before there was a little voice calling out: _Daddy_. She had different inflections for how she said the word, entirely dependent on who she wanted. Aaron raised his eyebrows.

“Up you go, then,” he said to Robert. “She wants you.”

When Robert came back downstairs again, after helping Annie get back to sleep (two rushed readings of Stickman), Aaron was on the phone. They usually rung Seb a few times a week in the evenings, but this was more serious sounding and Robert could hear Aaron say: _I’ll get him to call you as soon as he’s finished with Annie_ , but the caller had hung up before Aaron had the chance to see he was already downstairs and could hand over the phone.

“What?” Robert said. “What is it?”

“That was Diane,” Aaron said, placing the phone back down on the table. “She’s had a phone call from your Gran in Spain.” Aaron gave a little pause, but cut it short when he saw the look on Robert’s face. “Everything’s fine.”

“Okay, good.”

“But Diane thinks she’s hiding something. That she’s not well.”

“She’s 104, she’s not exactly going to run a marathon.”

“Well, Diane said that Annie – your Gran, Annie – wants you all to visit. Diane thinks it’s so she can say her goodbyes. She’s paid for the tickets and everything.”

“When?”

“Tuesday.”

Spain. That was going to fuck up the anniversary plans then. Robert sat on the arm of the sofa, staring at the blank phone screen.

“When was the last time you saw her?”

“It didn’t end well,” Robert said. “I went to Spain before Dad did, before he died. She thought I was in trouble, that I was after money. Which I was. I did some stupid things out there after she told me what she thought of me. Got drunk, slept around…” He looked up, locked eyes with Aaron for a moment. “Yeah. Guys mostly, so you can imagine what my headspace was like. Not that Gran ever knew what was going on, where I was when I wasn’t coming home. There was something easier about it being in a foreign country, you know? I could distance myself from it. But when I kept rolling in hungover, she’d had enough of me and ended up giving me money to go back to England and sort my life out.”

“And you haven’t spoken to her since?”

“Diane’s kept her up to date, but I think I’m as much of a disappointment to her as I was to Dad.”

“We named our daughter after her,” Aaron said in the long well of silence.

Robert had his eyes averted, down at his shoes. “We both liked it.”

“I was the one that…” They’d had endless discussions about names. They’d looked on the internet, got suggestions from various members of the family. The Dingles all had their Biblical inputs, but it was Aaron who’d seen an old photo of Robert wrapped in Grandma Sugden’s arms, his freckled face shining and suggested the name Annie.

Robert had agreed, because why wouldn’t he? When he thought of Annie he thought of that little boy, of the farm, of Sarah. He didn’t think about the latter years at all.

“If I’d have known how you felt…” Aaron said.

“It was my fault for not saying anything. I wanted to call her Annie, okay? I don’t think about those years. And now we’ve got our own Annie, she’s all I think about. Our little girl.”

Aaron picked up one of the cushions from the sofa, fidgeting with its corner. “So what we you going to do about Spain? It sounds like she wants to put all that stuff in the past.” He reached out, putting his hand on Robert’s knee. “I’m sure she’d love to meet her great-grandkids. Her namesake.”

*

Annie lived in a small retirement village where warden staff and community nurses popped in and out of the villas to keep an eye on residents. It was the first of October and in the south of Spain, still pleasantly warm, feeling a long way from the pressing grey skies and drizzle they’d left in Yorkshire. Robert had hired a people carrier and they’d managed to all fit – him, Aaron, the kids, Vic and Diane – and make room for luggage and the kids’ sprawling collection of toys. The retirement village was ninety minutes from the airport and the sound of Seb retching in the backseats was setting Robert off too. They pulled over for some air and for a few drinks that Diane had handily picked up as they were leaving the airport. Vic supervised as the kids released some of their energy and played in the grass by the service station and Diane went to find a toilet. Aaron pulled Robert away from the kids’ sightline and put a hand on the top of his arm. It was one of the many things Robert loved about him, the way he could read him, the way he always wanted to protect both him and the kids from pain.

“Talk to me. Don’t go back there,” Aaron said, knowing Robert was drifting back in time.

“I’m fine.”

“Yeah cos you look it.” Aaron kept his hand on him, steady and calming. “What’s worrying you?”

What could he say? That there was more riding on this visit than he ever wanted to admit to. Closure sounded like a cliché, but there had been so much of his past that he’d wilfully shut himself out of, because it was painful, because he didn’t like who he was, because he thought he’d be letting the family down. The truth was, Annie had been in touch. First she’d tried to make contact herself and later, through Diane. She’d said the invitation was always open but now she’d really meant it. He hadn’t believed her before. It was just what people said. It was what Annie said, knowing he’d never come, knowing he was too ashamed. Visiting now felt like a cop out, felt like he was there out of obligation. All this time he’d been punishing her, and in turn punishing himself.

“It’s just been a long time,” Robert said eventually, trying to appease Aaron’s worries, and kissing him on the cheek.

“If anyone should be nervous it’s me. Diane said she’s a formidable woman.”

Robert smiled weakly and cupped his hand around Aaron’s cheek. “I’m the luckiest man alive to have you. You know that, don’t you?”

“Tell me that again when we’re trying to stop our kids terrorising a hundred-and-four year old woman.”

One of the wardens came to greet them when they parked up at the village. She was smartly dressed with a warm smile and spoke in almost perfect English. Diane took the lead, having visited Annie in the complex not so long ago.

“How is she doing?” Diane asked, embracing the woman’s hand with her own. “Tell me, honestly.”

The warden looked at each of their faces sympathetically. “Lovely children,” she said, aiming her comments at Vic, the woman she presumed to be their mother.

“Thank you,” Robert said. He couldn’t help but take a step closer to Aaron, to put a hand on his shoulder blades. There was nothing but pride when it came to the children and what they meant to him.

There was a blink of realisation from the woman leading them through the security gates but Robert couldn’t work out what her glance meant, he just knew it wasn’t the time to be analysing it.

“To be honest with you, I would have not suggested Mrs Sugden have so many lively visitors all at once,” the warden said.

Hearing her surname reminded Robert just how long Annie had been without Amos, without anyone really. What was the point of living in a country as beautiful as this without having anyone to share it with? He looked at Aaron, heart quickening. Life without him didn’t bear thinking about.

“She’s in good spirits,” the warden said. “She’s a fortunate woman. She has a lot of friends here in the village. But I will tell you that the doctors think she is not very well at all.”

It transpired that a chest infection had seriously affected Annie’s overall health and she barely left her apartment, choosing to spend most of the day in bed, or sat in a wheelchair with the patio doors open. They couldn’t see the sea from here, but the warm breeze was something she enjoyed.

They’d explained to the kids on the way where they were going and what they were there for, but now they were here, it needed talking through again so that they wouldn’t be frightened and so they wouldn’t tire Annie out with their chaotic energy.

Robert watched Aaron crouch to their level to explain, while Vic hovered, squeezing Diane’s hand sympathetically. Her excuses for not keeping in touch with Annie regularly were teenage negligence. Robert felt his whole body sway with nerves and then, the door was unlocked, they were in. The apartment burred with aircon and the tiled floor seemed to amplify their arrival tenfold. He was in the door first though he wished he’d held back, hidden, so that by the time she’d spotted him she was too exhausted from greeting everyone else.

“Who’s that tall handsome man? It can’t be my grandson,” she said, appearing to squint at him as he moved into the room, her sat by the open patio doors. She was smiling though, holding out her arms for him. He was almost too afraid to touch her.

“Hello Grandma,” he said, gently putting his arms around her tiny, crumpled frame. She smelt of face cream and oranges, tanging underneath with something more chemical.

Her hand stayed on his back, face pressed into his shoulder. “It’s so good to see you at last, young Robert,” she said.

Once Vic and Diane had said their hellos, Robert stepped beside Aaron, putting an arm around his shoulders.

“You don’t need to tell me who this is,” Annie said.

“I sent her some wedding photos,” Diane chipped in.

Robert could feel himself growing hot, not knowing if Annie was being reserved or cold. Aaron leant in to kiss her cheek, mumbling that it was lovely to finally meet her.

“Likewise, dear,” she said. She peered behind him, seeing the children nervously in wait. “And these are yours, are they?”

“Sebastian and Annie,” Robert said, fighting the hard swallow in his throat, and picking up Annie so that her great-grandmother could kiss her cheek.

“What a lovely name you’ve got young lady,” the elder of the Annies said, as once planted on the ground again little Annie tucked herself behind her dad’s knees.

Seb eyed his great-grandmother nervously, looking first at Robert, then Aaron.

“Go on,” Aaron said.

“I don’t bite.”

Seb stepped forward to give her a half-hug obstructed by the sides of her wheelchair.

“Lovely,” she said, shutting her eyes and folding her hands into her lap. “I had no idea they had gotten so big.”

“We should’ve come sooner,” Robert said.

“You’re here now,” Annie said. “That’s what counts.”

“Why don’t I make us all a brew?” Vic said, sensing the obvious tension that had crept into the room.

Aaron set up the kids in the living room floor with enough toys and books to keep them occupied. Seb had his Marvel sticker book to keep him quiet and Annie favoured chunky brick cars she could put together and dismantle, then zoom around under the legs of furniture. Robert couldn’t sit still watching his grandma studying them, his mind churning over what she might be thinking. He was readying himself for comments, about how they cope with two fathers, about why Annie wasn’t playing with dolls, about how she needed a mother figure in her life, about where the money came from to pay for their surrogacy. She’d given him nothing to trigger these kinds of comments but they played over and over in a paranoid loop. Being with her reminded him of Jack, and thinking of Jack brought every insecurity burning to the surface.

A soft smile played over his grandma’s face. “I’ve never known two children to be so quiet.”

Robert felt his racing heart pause, stopping all speech in his tracks.

“They’re not normally this good,” Aaron said, grinning. Robert looked over, saw that Aaron was visibly relaxed now, even helping himself to one of the biscuits on the plate.

“They must be tired coming all this way.”

“We’ll get the tantrums later.” Aaron gave Annie a small smile that rounded his cheeks.

“Oh I should think so,” Annie said. “You know, this one could be as good as gold when he wanted.” She pointed towards Robert.

“I find that hard to believe.”

“Well you must have done something right,” she said to Aaron. “By all accounts he’s done himself proud back in Emmerdale. It’s nice to finally see it for myself.”

Aaron put his hand on Robert’s knee. “That’s all his doing. Nothing to do with me.”

“Aaron’s practically a saint,” Diane said, giving them all a wink.

Robert knew by the concern on Aaron’s face that he was wearing his faraway smile, a mask. Aaron’s thumb ran over the top of Robert’s hand and then Robert cleared his throat.

“It’s a nice little place you’ve got here.”

Annie raised her head and tutted. “I look at the same four walls every day. At least tell me about all these years I’ve missed out on.”

It took him a moment to realise that Annie was hardly looking at him, instead completely transfixed by the children on the floor, the way Seb had folded his sticker book closed and was helping his sister to build a bigger car, not taking over, just asking her what colours she wanted and what wheels she needed.

Robert could feel a wall of emotions threatening to overwhelm him. He didn’t want to feel this way in front of the kids, he didn’t want to show it in front of Diane and Vic either.

“How far’s the sea from here?”

“Fifteen minute walk or so according to the map,” Vic said.

“You fancy a walk, Gran? Or a push?” Robert had already sprung to his feet, ignoring the flash of alarm on the faces of his family.

“I’ve not got much money left, you know,” Annie said. “If you’re thinking of pushing me into the water.”

“Don’t be daft,” he said. “It’s time we had a catch up, you and me. Without the rest of these lot chipping in their opinions.”

“Go on then. Get me a blanket from the other room before we head off.”

“And no speeding!” Diane said.

*

“It’s like an old shopping trolley,” Robert said once they’d reached one of the slopes towards the coast. “It’s got a gammy front wheel.” The wheelchair had a mind of its own, a slight drift to the right.

“We’re nearly there now,” Annie said. She could be quite demanding still, even at her age.

The cove they stopped at wasn’t hugely populated. It was just out of season and holiday makers were mostly older couples, already bronzed, drinking water and wearing wide-brimmed hats. Annie pointed him in the direction of a bench, partly shaded so that he could park her up in a place where she wasn’t likely to get sunstroke.

They chatted idly at first. Observations, Spain in general, Emmerdale in general, Vic’s life, Diane’s new fella. Robert thought he was doing a good job at keeping things neutral and present, taking the focus away from him, but then Annie’s hand landed on his arm.

“So tell me, Robert, why it takes me falling on my death bed for you to visit?”

He laughed sheepishly, looking out towards the horizon, where the sun glittered on the crests of waves.

“Did you think I would have a problem with the life you’ve made? With Aaron?”

He looked down now, put his hand on top of hers, bony and marked with age. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry too,” she said. “I’m sorry that I might have missed out on all of this. Seeing you so happy. I’m sorry if I ever gave you the impression I wouldn’t love you just the same. He’s a lovely lad and you’ve done a great job with those children.”

“Gran…” It was caught in his throat.

“You’ve not had an easy life, Robert. Losing Pat when you were just a baby, losing Sarah too when you were just a boy. It was hard on you, hard on Jack too. He told me everything about the business with that Max King lad and all the trouble you were in, but it was obvious there was something more going on when you were here with me. I tried to talk to you, tried to get through to you, but you pushed me away every time.”

“I had too much going on up here,” Robert said, tapping his temple.

“I never wanted it to end like that between us,” Annie said. “I don’t have many regrets in my life, but giving you that money and sending you away is my biggest one. I didn’t want that to be our final memories of each other, Robert. I had to make it right. The amount of times I sat with your dad before he died and all we could talk about was you and Andy and Victoria. He was so proud of all three of you.”

Robert stood up, feeling as if he needed more air than even the sea could provide. These sorts of conversations were exactly why he didn’t want to come.

“Diane’s stories didn’t do you justice,” Annie said. Robert looked back at her, querying what she meant and reluctantly sat beside her again. “You and Aaron and the children. You make an old woman very happy to see you all like that.”

“What do you mean?”

“Love. Happiness. Family,” she said. “Nothing in the world like it. It shines out of you. You’d always looked so brooding and closed off and now…”

There was a relief in his chest that poured out, triggering a smile. Annie angled her face so it hit some soft rays of sun and closed her eyes.

“That husband of yours is very handsome,” Annie said.

“He is.”

“And I can already tell you two make wonderful fathers. They’re a credit too you.”

“We do our best,” Robert said.

“I shall tell all the other residents about my perfect great-grandchildren.” Annie opened her eyes, tried to make herself more comfortable in her seat before she spoke again. “Diane told me…about your loss. It’s an awful thing to happen to any parent,” she said.

Robert hesitated. He hadn’t expected Annie to bring it up. He had cried everything out about the miscarriage but he’d be lying if he said he didn’t think about it every day. Their second go at surrogacy. They were only months in but they were already planning, getting excited, talking about names and what they were going to tell Annie and Seb about their new sibling. Then they’d had the call from the surrogate, already on the way to the hospital, her voice sounding exhausted and broken. Three words and everything shattered. _I’m so sorry_.

“We’re okay,” Robert said. “We didn’t tell the kids, we thought it was better if they didn’t know.”

“Probably wise,” she said. “As long as you two aren’t bottling it up. They’re bright children, they’ll know something’s up.”

“Too right,” Robert said. “But we saw a counsellor and Aaron’s been amazing through it all.”

“It’ll take time,” she said. “But as long as you have each other.”

“I don’t know where I’d be without him.”

*

When they got back to the apartment, little Annie was zonked out, curled asleep on Aaron’s lap.

“She looks how I feel,” Annie said, as Robert pushed the wheelchair over to the lounge area. “When you said we’d go for a walk, I didn’t expect to be doing laps.”

Diane’s mouth fell open but Robert shook his head. “She’s exaggerating.” He looked at Aaron. “How have they been?”

“Good as gold.” Aaron kissed the top of their daughter’s head. Seb, feeling tired, moved in to cuddle up to Aaron on the sofa too. The three of them like that made Robert feel like the luckiest man alive.

“We should get off in a bit. Give you some rest,” Vic said.

“Only if you promise to come back first thing in the morning. Now I’ve got you here I want to make the most of it.”

“It’s a deal,” Robert said.

By the time they got to their villa, the sun was already leaking orange across the sky and Robert realised just how long the day had been since they left Emmerdale. Vic had spotted a takeaway pizzeria a few roads away so while they put the kids to bed – Seb too tired to complain about an early night – she popped out to buy their tea and Diane had a bath.

They’d booked the villa through Air BnB and the owners had been kind enough to leave them some wine as a welcome gift. As the sun slinked away, leaving a glimmer of warmth behind, Aaron poured them both a glass and joined Robert outside on the patio, perching on the end of Robert’s sun lounger.

“I thought you might need this,” Aaron said, delivering the glass straight into his hand.

Robert put the glass on the ground and sat up, putting his arms around Aaron. “What I need is you.” He breathed him in, the stale warmth from being cooped up in a plane, a car, an old woman’s apartment, and exhaled deeply against his neck.

“I don’t like it when you’re this quiet,” Aaron said. “It freaks me out.” He ran the tips of his fingers along Robert’s forearm hair and stopped to stroke the wristband of his watch.

“It’s been a long day.”

“Was everything okay when you went out with Annie? Your gran Annie?”

“Fine, yeah. She carried on guilt tripping me about not coming over sooner.”

“It’s good that you cleared the air.”

Robert was silent for what felt like a long time. He could feel the solid rhythm of Aaron’s heartbeat where he flattened his hands.

“I think she’s proud,” Robert said after more time had passed. He was worried Vic would bustle in any second being loud and oblivious. He wished they’d done this years ago, just the two of them. He wished Annie had got to know Aaron when she was still so full of life and quick retorts.

“Of course she is.”

“She liked you.”

Aaron made a clucking pfft sound. “Obviously.”

“And she’s smitten with the kids. She said they’re a credit to us.”

“They are. They’re amazing kids.” Aaron turned a little so he could look at Robert. “So why can I feel you’re holding something back?”

Robert picked up his wine, took a large mouthful and replaced the glass back down and put his arms back around Aaron. “Because I realised I’m never going to hear that from dad and that maybe I need to let it go…that he might have seen me turn it around and been proud. Or he might’ve struggled. But I can’t keep waiting for him to give me his approval. I need to find it on my own. Be proud of myself.”

Aaron wiped a rush of tears from his eyes and reached out to touch Robert’s face. “Aren’t you?”

Robert let himself smile. “Yeah. I think I am.”

*

It was hard to believe that Annie Sugden held out another two years. One hundred and six years old. Diane had a theory that the dying hold out for the things they’re waiting for. Christmas maybe, the arrival of a relative. And Annie held out right until the end. Diane was with her, holding up the iPad that Robert had bought Diane for her birthday. He’d even shown her how to use FaceTime specifically for this moment.

“Are you ready?” Robert asked, hundreds of miles away, at home now, not in the clinical white hospital rooms.

“Oh get on with it!” Diane said, prompting a weak laugh from Annie in her bed.

The screen flickered and blurred and then:

Twins. Two baby baskets. One of them, the eldest by twenty minutes, was in Aaron’s arms, fighting a wriggling little cry for a feed.

“This is Benjamin,” Robert said, filming up close his son’s scrunched up face. His hand was already tight around Aaron’s thumb. He backed up, zooming out so Annie could see the full perfect sight of father and son. They could all hear the cooing over the speakers.

“Isn’t he gorgeous?” Diane said.

“Don’t,” Robert said. “You’ll set us off again.”

He moved the iPad to show them their youngest boy. “Thomas,” he said. “The doctors are a bit worried about the size of his lungs so we’re heading back to the hospital tomorrow.”

“But they said he’s fine to be home,” Aaron called out, reassuring them.

“They’re perfect,” Annie said on FaceTime. “Give them a kiss from me.”

Twins had been a shock to them. They’d always been told it was a possibility but when the scan revealed two dark shapes they hadn’t quite believed it. It was less of a shock to their surrogate who was positively huge. The nurses at the hospital when they were born were all over them, handing them one each and crying. Photo after photo. Robert changed his phone background to the photo they took last. In it, he had Benjamin in his arms and he leaned in to kiss Aaron’s forehead. Aaron was holding Thomas in his arms and his eyes were bloodshot from crying.

Annie hadn’t been into dolls until she found out she was getting a pair of new brothers. She’d persuaded Chas to buy her two baby dolls and dressed them the same. They caught her laying them down for a sleep side-by-side at the bottom of her bed and telling them off for being naughty. Seb’s excitement was more aloof, asking if he could choose their names, and wondering when they’d be old enough to play football with him. Ross and Rebecca had just had a boy of their own, so Robert suspected Seb was holding out for an entire football squad to play with in time.

Annie was surprisingly shy and nervous the first time she met the boys.

“Daddy,” she said, turning to Aaron. “I don’t know which is which.”

In the end, Liv solved that problem. She arrived two days later with t-shirts for them both. “You cannot under any circumstances dress them the same. That’s just cruel.”

“What about if we all wore matching outfits?” Robert asked.

“I disown you.”

Liv had brought with her presents for all the kids. She was good like that. Even though she hadn’t lived with them for years, she knew exactly what to buy all of them. It perked up Annie considerably who had spent the whole morning cuddled up and snotty on Robert’s chest. First he thought she was just trying to get out of going to school to spend more time with Ben and Tom, but then she’d even been too ill to want to go to karate club so they knew something was wrong. They’d been on the sofa, hot Ribena for Annie and the newest Disney film on. She’d seen it approximately 480 times and Robert could recite the script and the songs word for word.

But Liv’s arrival had Annie running to the door, bounding into her auntie’s arms.

“What a welcome,” she said.

“You’ll have snot over you in a minute,” Robert said, launching up from the sofa to hug her. “Your brother has just popped out for nappies.”

Liv pfft’d – the spitting image of Aaron. “It’s not him I want to see. Where are Bill and Ben?”

Robert scowled.

“I can’t even joke?”

“I’m exhausted and they are my beautiful boys, so no. You can’t.”

“Are they sleeping?”

“Flat out.”

“Cuppa first then?”

“You know where the kettle is,” he said. “Knock yourself out.” She drank from his “#No.1 Dad mug” (Aaron had a matching one) just out of spite.

They had a full house by three. Word had got round. Vic came first with Seb in tow – just a flying visit after Rebecca had wangled him a half day at school for special circumstances. Seb said he thought babies were pretty boring but that his new brothers were quite cool still. He was mostly interested in getting his present from Liv and by the end of the day had softened up enough to ask for cuddles from most of the family. They had heard about how well he was doing in school and swimming and got treated to an on-land performance of all his prized swimming strokes. Annie joined in of course, forever awed in his presence.

Then Chas, Paddy and their brood came with food and drink and another mountain of presents. They hadn’t got the memo about matching outfits for the boys and Liv kept making faces at Robert behind their back. Chas couldn’t stop hugging Aaron. She’d bought them photo frames with an engraving that read The Sugden-Dingle family. Later a few stray Dingles appeared, then Nicola and Jimmy with their best advice for wrangling three kids in the same house, and then finally it was back to just four of them. Diane called from Spain when they’d put all three of the kids to bed to say Annie had died peacefully in her sleep an hour ago.

Robert put his head on Aaron’s chest, let his hair be stroked, let his worries melt. There was an old photograph on the mantle piece, one from the days of the farm. Robert as a boy, Jack, Sarah, Annie too. It was bittersweet. Robert had placed it there after they returned from Spain two years ago. _Time to meet my beautiful family, Dad,_ he’d said, placing it there.

“Are you okay?” Aaron asked.

“Yeah,” Robert said. “I’m just glad she got to see the boys.”

“Me too,” Aaron said. “Diane said they were looking at the photos just before she passed.”

“That’s nice,” he said. “We’re so lucky.”

Robert reached for his phone and scrolled through his camera roll, a catalogue of the last few crazy days. He stopped at the photo from that afternoon, the six of them all exhausted and bewildered in their own way, Annie mid-way through a illness-induced tantrum, Thomas just about to scream his lungs out, Seb looking in the wrong direction and Benjamin stinking up his nappy.

“Is this real?” Robert said.

“Don’t you start getting soft on me.”

“Can you blame me? Look at our kids. And us. Look at us. How did we get here?”

“It’s pretty great.” Aaron reached to flick through a few more photos. “This one is cute. But it was just before the poo explosion so...”

“How long before we start hating the early starts and the poo and the sick and the crying in the night again?”

“Judging by last time, we’ve got two week window. Right now you love everything about them. You just wait.”

Robert straightened up, looked him in the eye. “Are we ever going to have sex again or are we always going to be too tired?”

“Hm. Maybe on your birthday.”

“Can I move the date?”

“You really think you’re up to it?”

“I’ll give it a good go.”

“Now?”

Aaron pinned him with a kiss, hot and hard and all their fresh fatherhood excitement and exhaustion rolled into one. He broke away, eyes dark and half-lidded. “If you make me come before one of the kids cries, I’ll get up and do the night feeds.”

“You’re on.”

  


End file.
